There’s no doubt: Fewer people are making a commitment to marriage. Barely “more than half of adults in the U.S. say they’re living with a spouse. It is the lowest share on record, and down from 70 percent in 1967.”

Written by Leah Ruppanner, University of Melbourne; Melissa Milkie and Scott Schieman, University of Toronto | Print | Email

The quality of women’s relationships with their partner is diminished if they view their parenting division as unfair or want to spend more time working, our new study of employed parents in Canada has found.

The list was one I never thought I would make. I stared at the book titles I had jotted down for reference; each of them looked at divorce from a different angle. I felt I was at the end of my rope as I drifted farther and farther away from any hope of restoring the unity we...

What does it mean to be fully committed in a monogamous relationship? The traditional meaning has to do with focusing your romantic energies only upon your partner. You are not committed if you have “one foot outside the door,” meaning you are still available for romantic relationship with another person.

Trust is the foundation of love. Yet how do you build it? With monotonous regularity you hear your friends and colleagues say, "You can't trust anyone anymore." Almost every popular magazine you open has an article about how couples cheat on each other. Yes, a majority of married men and women do...

REALationship. Okay, it’s a cute word. But what does it mean to have a real relationship, a relationship with substance? What does it take to have a relationship that not only lasts, but also thrives with loving connection?

Written by Laina Bay-Cheng, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York | Print | Email

When it comes to power in romantic relationships, men are often cast as dominant and women as deferential. But working against this are caricatures of domineering women with their “hen-pecked husbands” and “whipped boyfriends.”

It’s up to you to take smart risks with love. You don’t want to put your heart in the care of anybody who’s going to hide their true self, treat you poorly, and/or turn out to be psychologically unavailable. Trust must be earned and renewed regularly by our actions.

We all lie. How contradictory it is: we are taught as children that we must always tell the truth, that we shouldn’t lie, yet society teaches us to lie “appropriately” — in order to avoid conflict, to be polite, to get what we want...

In the late 16th century, the famous French essayist Michel de Montaigne wrote about two marriages between people of the same sex. At the time, same-sex marriages were not recognized by religious or civil law...

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are five love songs that pose serious scientific questions. Experts from the University of Melbourne offer insights about the evolution of love, how it changes our bodies, and what human couples can learn from prairie voles and spiders.

Being someone’s BFF is a big deal – you don’t hand over the other half of your “Best Friends” necklace to just anyone. Having a romantic partner who is also your best friend potentially sounds perfect.

Love sure does hurt, as the Everly Brothers knew very well. And while it is often romanticised or made sentimental, the brutal reality is that many of us experience fairly unpleasant symptoms when in the throes of love.

Whether people are struggling to save a marriage, to cooperate in a family crisis, or to build rapport with a difficult boss, they usually have one thing in common: They need to share emotional information that can help them feel connected.

My favorite fairy tale as a child was Cinderella, so when I met Charlie and fell in love with him, I thought my prince had come. But these kinds of fantasies are a setup for expectations that are impossible to fulfill...

Most people think just one sperm is needed to fertilize a woman’s egg and make a healthy pregnancy. However, biologists now believe sexual intercourse is not just a sperm delivery process, but also a kind of biological communication.

Maybe you can't see an obvious reason why you haven't found happiness in your relationships, but somehow it's not happening as you envisioned. You can't seem to locate the answers that will bring everything together. Don't give up. Understanding is a journey...

In a relationship there are myriad issues to manage. Who walks the dog? Does his mother like me? Whom are we supporting to win RuPaul’s “Drag Race All Stars 2”? But there is one issue that can often be harder to manage – how do we as a couple deal with HIV?

Many people involved in abusive partner relationships don’t think of the mistreatment as abuse, say researchers. Yet over the course of a lifetime, one-fourth to one-third of women in the United States will experience abuse from an intimate partner.

Attempting to game the mysteries of love – or, in dating site eHarmony’s terms, “the secret sauce of attraction” – is nothing new. Equally old, of course, is the failure inherent in all such attempts to do so.

People in the throes of a breakup universally express the fear that they will never love again. I was afraid of this myself for a few months after losing my life partner. In the midst of the despair and hopelessness, we believe that losing our loved one means losing the possibility for love and connection forever.

A popular misconception is that most child sex offenders were once victims themselves. The theory is based on the erroneous assumption that they’ve become paedophiles – those preferentially sexually attracted to prepubescent children – because of their victimisation.

Having sex frequently—and enjoying it—may put older men at higher risk for heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. For older women, however, good sex may actually lower the risk of hypertension.

There's a psychological war that goes on in us humans between self-hate and self-love. It's a part of another battle that persists: the energy war between living and dying, building energy and depleting energy. The two issues are wrapped up with abundance and love, and they can very dramatically affect your ability to earn money and pull abundance to you...

Written by Gayle Brewer, University of Central Lancashire | Print | Email

The selection and attraction of a suitable mate is of fundamental importance to all species. It is perhaps not surprising then that dating programmes, featuring men and women competing for the attentions of a potential partner, are so popular.

Difference exist only on the surface. People sometimes use their differences as an excuse for their lack of closeness. And yet these differences can be a great blessing, and almost force a couple to go to a deeper place where the differences do not exist.

Over the past few years, there has been a steady flow of articles in magazines, newspapers and online news outlets examining what hookup culture on college campuses means for sexual norms and behaviors among young adults, particularly young women.

The world of internet pornography is a pervasive and wide reaching technology, growing at a breathtaking rate. It is a $13 billion-a-year industry in the US. Nine out of 10 boys in America are exposed to it before the age of 18, and men are 543% more likely to be users than women.

Written by Joseph Ciarrochi, Australian Catholic University | Print | Email

Making friends is tough for teenagers. Making friends with the opposite sex can be even tougher. Our research, published in the Journal of Personality, suggests empathy may be the key to developing friendships, and may be especially important for young men establishing supportive friendships with young women.

You are on holiday with your partner of several years. Your relationship is going pretty well, but you wonder if it could be better. It’s Valentine’s Day and you find a bottle on the beach. You rub it. A love genie appears. He (or she) will grant you three special Valentine wishes. Here are some of your choices:

Written by Brendan Zietsch, The University of Queensland | Print | Email

We know a lot about why people choose different brands of dishwashing detergent, because companies spend billions of dollars investigating who buys what. But when it comes to the processes behind perhaps our most significant life choice – choosing a romantic partner – science knows surprisingly little.

The scene described in Nancy Jo Sales’s huge Tinder report published in Vanity Fair magazine featured groups of twenty-something friends and colleagues in a Manhattan bar relaxing after work. But rather than socialising with each other they were engrossed in the more private world of their mobile phones, seeking something completely personal: a sexual partner (albeit not necessarily just for sex).

Matchmaking and dating services used to advertise in small rectangles on tube carriages, next to the vitamin drinks and food delivery services, and in smaller rectangles still on the classified pages of newspapers and magazines.

Written by Melanie Green, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York and John Donahue, Columbus College of Art & Design | Print | Email

Everyone loves a good story, but can a good story lead to love? Storytelling is a fundamental form of communication, and research has demonstrated the power of narratives to change minds and influence behavior.

Written by Gayle Brewer, University of Central Lancashire | Print | Email

We’ve all felt it at some time in our lives. Poets write about it, singers sing about it – and a whole industry has grown up around finding it, expressing it and maintaining it. But what is love? Where does it reside? What triggers it? And what’s really going on in our minds and bodies when we fall “head over heels”?

“Nice guys finish last” is one of the most widely believed maxims of dating. Fleshed out, the idea goes something like this: heterosexual women might say they want nice characteristics in a partner, but in reality what they want is the challenge that comes with dating a “bad boy”.

In the United States, the teen pregnancy rate is higher than in any other western industrialized country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At the same time, a growing number of American teens and young adults have been diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Written by Matthew D. Johnson, Binghamton University, State University of New York | Print | Email

Lots of women look forward to motherhood – getting to know a tiny baby, raising a growing child, developing a relationship with a maturing son or daughter. All over the world, people believe that parenting is the most rewarding part of life.

"Masculine traits in humans are not the same as, say, in peacocks where the beautiful tail attracts a mate," says David Puts. "For example, beards make men more dominant looking, scarier, and seemingly more dangerous, but most women prefer clean-shaven men."

True or false: *Couples with great relationships don’t fight. * Most people expect too much from marriage. * All the good men/women are already taken. * Love can heal all wounds. * If my partner were more like me, we’d have a better relationship.

"A lot of times, just by avoiding negative traits, people will probably be fairly well off—maybe even more well off—than if they were trying to optimize the best potential partner," says Gregory Webster.

Written by Brendan Zietsch, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland | Print | Email

The difficult thing is how to measure it, because people will probably over-estimate. If you’re a non-scientist, you might have once asked yourself, propped against the bedhead after disappointingly quick intercourse, how long does sex “normally” last?

Becoming vulnerable with a woman teaches you all about trust. I often hear, “I’ll be more vulnerable with her when I trust her more.” This attitude doesn’t work. Your vulnerability opens the door to trust, and trust opens the door to love.

Written by Viren Swami, Professor of Social Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University | Print | Email

Some time ago, I found myself single again (shock, horror!) and decided to get back into the world of dating. One thing that struck me very early on in my forays was that everyone had an opinion about “what worked” in terms of dating.

Written by Karen E. H. Skinazi, University of Birmingham | Print | Email

For all that Miley Cyrus’s cropped hair and crotch-clutching and “I don’t relate to being boy or girl” have inspired articles about gender fluidity as the new “in” thing, it’s hard not to see Cyrus’s “trailblazing” as derivative of David Bowie – a true icon in so many ways, not least in his defiant smashing of gender norms.

Written by Laurence D. Hurst, Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at The Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath | Print | Email

The reason why, in terms of evolution, organisms have sex may seem rather obvious – they do it to reproduce. Clearly, natural selection must favour individuals who can reproduce over those who can’t. But this is missing the point. For many species there is an alternative: asexual reproduction.

Written by Amy Schalet, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst | Print | Email

American classrooms do not talk frankly about teenage love or emotional intimacy. Last month, Tom Porton, an award-winning, veteran Bronx high school teacher, handed in his resignation after colliding with the school’s principal.

Have you ever thought there was an uncanny family resemblance between your friend and her partner? Or wondered for a fleeting moment whether the pair walking down the road were husband and wife, or brother and sister? You might not be imagining things. Animals of many species “learn” what a suitable

Written by Tamas Szekely, Professor of Biodiversity, University of Bath | Print | Email

When it comes to love, cheating and divorce, matters are never just of the heart. In a bid to understand the love lives of humans, scientists have turned to the romantic relations of birds since the family life of many birds is reminiscent of those exhibited by humans.

Written by Eric Levy, University Lecturer in Marketing (Assistant Professor), University of Cambridge | Print | Email

Money might not buy you love, but according to some studies in psychology and consumer behaviour, how you spend it could reveal a thing or two about your romantic intentions. These studies demonstrate that just thinking about meeting a new partner can actually impact our shopping decisions in surprising ways – affecting men and women differently.

In Western cultures, we mark the beginning of romantic entanglement by touching lips. Few actions are as fraught with anxiety and symbolism as that first kiss—and it’s no exaggeration to say that some kisses feel like life or death.

Written by Sarah Gomillion, Postdoctoral research fellow in social psychology, University of Aberdeen | Print | Email

At the beginning of a romantic relationship, passion is not in short supply. The thrills of learning all about your beloved, sharing new experiences, and having plenty of sex, create an exhilarating state of desire and romantic love. In fact, a number of scientific studies have shown that this kind of love

“Selfie” is not just word of the year, but also the mainstay of postings on social media sites such as Instagram. With the prevalence of camera-equipped smartphones the posting of selfies has reached epidemic levels – even the funerals of national leaders aren’t exempt. But is there a psychological fall-out?

A friend once grumbled that, given the choice, she’d rather see her ex miserable than herself happy. Few things in life are as traumatic as the end of a long-term, romantic relationship. Nonetheless, many people are able to eventually recover and move on relatively unscathed.